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Is Ron Paul Right on Earmarks?

By: jsanzone (Diary)  |  April 2nd, 2010 at 05:33 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Republicans love to hate earmarks, and as articulated so brilliantly [heh] by John McCain o’er the years, they are the ultimate evil of government spending–eliminating them will…you know…it’s the culture of corruption or some such thing. Ron Paul, one of three Republican congressmen to request earmarks this year, defended his position (through a spokeslady):

Paul spokeswoman Rachel Mills said he thinks Washington already extracts too much money from his constituents, and “part of his job is to work hard in Washington, D.C., to get that money back to those constituents in any form that he can.” She said Paul also believes that earmarking is more transparent than the regular budget process because you know exactly where the money goes and that it doesn’t affect the total amount appropriated by one dime.

Does this make Paul a hypocrite? Does it make him a hypocrite for inserting earmarks but voting against overall spending bills? Is he right to decide exactly where the money goes at the request of his constituents instead of leaving it up to bureaucratic discretion?

Is a moratorium on earmarks actually going to solve the budget deficit, or is it just a McCain-esque political stunt?

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COMMENTS

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  • http://truthupfront.blogspot.com jsanzone

    I should point out that it’s cross-posted at my blog, http://truthupfront.blogspot.com

  • acat

    This is why Ron Paul makes sense to those who don’t think too much … his argument is sound, but it depends on accepting the flaws in the current system.

    If, for example, your local sub shop (hoagie shop, to those of you in Philly) were to jack up the price of a bag of chips 33% but give every third person a free bag, there’d be some jostling and counting in the lines to try to be the one to get the freebie. Crazy Uncle Ron is arguing that it’s better to be the third guy rather than arguing to get rid of the broken system.

    I’d grudgingly respect the old coot if he’d come out and say “The system is broken, I’m doing the best I can to fix it, but in the meantime…”

    Mew

    • http://truthupfront.blogspot.com jsanzone

      Kinda what you’re looking for.

      http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-03-11/ron-paul-on-earmarks/

      • Scope

        http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/three-congressmen-defy-gop-earmark-ban-face-losing-committee-seats.php

        I’m sick of his adding gazillions in earmarks, and then voting against the bill they were added to. It’s only a ploy to keep his conservative ratings up. Ahn Cao, was the only R to vote for Obamacare, the first time around in the House.

        He claims that he is only getting back some of the taxpayer money his constituients have paid, yet, he is the one deciding what projects/businesses he supports. He seems to love the Army Corps of Engineers.

        • Swamp_Yankee

          He better love the ACOE. NO is still vulnerable to another hurricane or flood surge.

          Thats actually a case of how earmarks are useful. The money has already been spent. He is making sure it is going to a useful project andthat his constituents are protected. That money could be wasted away in beaurocratic back channels and patronage.

          • Scope

            with the ACOE statement. I have no idea what earmarks Cao made.

            I thought that the ACOE already was supposed to be back in Louisiana with respect to the levees, long ago. What happened to that money?or, are they still that incompetent? I don’t know, I’m just asking.

          • Swamp_Yankee

            Paul has the same Gulf problems as Cao. I dont think those post-Katrina projects are done and even if they were, they will need continuous funding for upkeep, monitoring, research….

          • Richard Mullins

            I’m not sure if Texas City is in his district but some of the Gulf coast in his district. Chambers County is low lying and so is many part of the coast in Brazoria County. I know my area but than a New Englander.

          • Swamp_Yankee

            http://www.house.gov/paul/district.shtml

            Uptot Corpus. And he has Galveston outright.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas’s_14th_congressional_district

          • Richard Mullins

            and that’s Solomon Ortiz area. There is lowing lying area in this District(TX-2) and that big oil spill in January was in the District. As for most of the work in Galveston, it’s pretty much done. Now the Ike lawyers are always on TV with ads though.

          • Swamp_Yankee

            My father and both of my brothers were commercial fishermen. We lived on the biggest money port in the US., and we get hit by hurricanes, (38 and 56).

            I just recalled that Paul had the water and that area is extremely vulnerable. The Ike damage may be done, but they are planning a new level five levee system, the Ike Dike, to replace the Galveston Wall. Not a bad use of federal money, and I can see why a rep in such a district would wantto make sure the money made its way back to the district. The 1900 cane was crazy.

          • http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

            I can hear your sea waves crashing
            While I watch the cannon flashing
            I clean my gun
            and dream of Galveston.

            Not really a great city, but it did have one great song.

          • Swamp_Yankee

            Never been to the city though.

          • Richard Mullins

            on I-45 and you’ll be there. I think you’d like Stewart beach though.

          • Richard Mullins

            or maybe that was Second Largest City. Oh well. My late Grandfather was born there(yeah many years after my Great Grandfather Dock[If you knew he was from, you would understand] moved to Texas[in The 20th Century]).

          • discerningconservative

            I know it’s Wikipedia, but they show Galveston and Corpus Chisti in the 14th Congressional District.

          • discerningconservative

            Swamp already beat me to it… Corpus isn’t in there, but Galveston is. Look at Swamp_Yankee’s link above for the official map.

          • Richard Mullins

            Ingelside might be in it(Victoria and Wharton are). It might look a bit different come 2012(talk is that it’s going to be balanced.). I looked a NationalAtlas.gov and no Corpus Christi.

          • discerningconservative

            When I looked at the map on Wikipedia, it looked like Corpus was in it, but when I went to the official CD14 site, I saw it was outside.

          • shadowtax

            I don’t like the horse-trading aspect. I want to see more issue voting and less rent seeking. “The bill had problems, but Happytown needed a new post office, so I voted for passage.” Ick.

            I don’t buy the argument that earmarks are merely an allocation of previously appropriated funds. Who voted to appropriate the funds to begin with? Congress. Don’t you think the Congressmen know that by inflating an appropriations bill, it will be easier for them to fund their own pet projects? Money is power.

            If there must be allocation by Congressmen, then it should be regularized. Perhaps each Congressional district should be allocated an equal amount of funds. Let the elected representative decide which transportation projects are most important for his district. Maybe with an additional amount to be allocated by majority of the state’s delegation. At least with a regularized system, a voter can review how his Congressman allocates his budget within the district.

            And imagine the consequences on fiscal restraint if a Congressman had the option to issue tax rebates to taxpayers in his district. I know it’s impossible, but I’ve got to dream. :)

        • Achance

          earmarks do not normally increase the total appropriation, they just direct some portion of it to a specific purpose. In Alaska’s case, federal funds, especially federal transportation funds would just go to gild the lily in Anchorage if left to the AK Legislature to direct; Young uses earmarks to direct them to other parts of the State.

          I know you all love to hate the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” and America’s Darling Sarah Palin was for it before she was against it and all that, but the Ketchikan Bridge didn’t increase the federal highway appropriation by one dime, it just directed a portion of it to Ketchikan’s bridge project. So, when all y’all raised Hell and when Sarah pandered to you, the money stayed in the DOT budget and gilded the lily in Anchorage rather than being spent on a useful project in Ketchikan. Y’all are just soooo fiscally responsible!

          • Scope

            earmarks are right and correct. The Republican ban on earmarks in the House was just a political and foolish move. I guess the House R’s are just looking for votes, and, political cover. I’m sorry I missed that message.

          • Swamp_Yankee

            Too many people conflate appropriations with a method of allocation. Earmarks are about process, but too many people think its about spending. Earmarks got tied up in spending and pork. Too late to try to change all those minds.

            But I know that McCain made earmarks a staple of of his campaign and I dont think it swayed one voter. I know it doesnt make a difference to the debt or the deficit. I do prefer the people allocating the money be held accountable through elections, as opposed to unaccountable beaurocrats. In the end it a not a big issue to me, and I certainly wont hold it against a Republican if they earmarked. So, some Congressman earmarked a 100 grand to fix a dilapitated bridge in his district and 75 grand to build a senior center. Yawn.

          • Scope

            I really would like to understand this. Is there a “budget” of federal money thrown out there, and, everyone goes after their piece of the pie? Is it like a company who asks the departments how much they need for next year, and they add 10% to last years budget? I am aware of a department of a pharmacutical company that had money left in their budget at year end, and, they bought goodies so they could get more money in the budget for the next year. Is that how this works?

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
          • acat

            Sorry, just having a hard time buying this.

            If a bill to allocate money is written in the Congress, what’s to stop Congressgrifter X from both (a) increasing the money allocated by the bill to make sure that (b) earmarking money from the bill to his friends’ company leaves enough profit for (c) his friend to be able to donate to the re-election campaign?

            Sorry, I don’t think congressgrifters are quite stupid enough to miss that.

            Mew

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            Look up the size of the budget relative to the total size of all earmarks.

            There’s plenty to go around.

          • acat

            http://hotair.com/archives/2007/11/08/bush-water-bill-veto-overridden/

            So. This bill is supposed to cost around 10-12 billion, but .. after congress add enough earmarks to more than double the thing.

            Even if this is an unusual bill, an extreme example of pork, it still shows that the congressgrifters aren’t, as others have said, “just” redirecting money.

            Mew

          • Swamp_Yankee

            Earmarks dont add money to the bill, they just direct where that money will go. The spending bill passes and then they all go for “theirs” by earmarking that money for specific projects. The earmarked projects dont add new spending, they just direct spending.

            The process of Congressmen tapping money for pet projects at home seems unseemly to some. But stuff like that has been going on since the beginning of this Republic. That what they do; make sure their district gets their share of the pie. Otherwise, the money is given to goverment agencies to spend.

            And even that amount is so small it is less then one percent of the budget. Fred Thomspon, who many hail as a hero around here, once said that earmarks a re just a drop in the bucket.

            I dont want to defend them. But its just not a big deal to me. And when we have a good Republican, politician or candidate, that gets hammered by the base as if earmarking is some cardinal sin, I think its counter-productive.

            Its not an issue worth destroying good Republicans.

          • Bill S

            But there are a number of other contributors who don’t. I think both sides of the argument make reasonable cases. I guess my biggest problem is that the earmark numbers are so small that they don’t bother me NEAR as much as the entitlements.

          • Swamp_Yankee

            A lot of earmark spending is the proper domain of the government such as preserving historical sites, maintaining parks, cleaning beaches, building highways… and the funding is short term. Short term, one shot funding, does less to create dependency.

            Its not just a matter of dollar and cents, its about defunding those programs that have been a cancer of the psyche of the people. Not only are entitlements bankrupting our wallets, they are bankrupting our spirit.

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
          • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

            Why in the h-e-double hockeysticks, if, let’s say, some state wants a “National Tea Pot Museum” or wants to build a bike trail they can’t tax their own citizens to pay for it? (I know, I know, the comeback is, “they’re just having their congresscritters ‘bring home the bacon’.” Well, the bacon shouldn’t have left the pockets of the state residents in such vast quantities to begin and that goes back to the level of participation by the state residents in their state’s politics.)

            I took a look at Jon Kyl’s earmarks. Almost all of them are for water projects or some other “public infrastructure.” Sure, they have a public purpose. But they still gild the lily of his friends who work for those projects.

            Our federal government is much, much too big. Too much of its spending (and I realize earmarks are only a small fraction) shouldn’t be spent in the first place and certainly not by the federal govt. And I realize Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and now Opansycare are the big items we MUST get under control and fix (the first three by, for example, following Paul Ryan’s plans; the last, by repeal). But stopping earmarks, I think, is a good place to start. The fact that we and others are having this discussion is a step in the right direction to curb this kind of out-of-control princely spending (I direct that you shall get the public’s money, but not you, by pointing my finger just so).

            Thank you.
            ColdWarrior
            Get in the ball game. Become a Republican precinct committeeman. NOW!

          • Swamp_Yankee

            Earmarks dont increase spending. The money is already spent.

            It just redirects it from the same hacks that stole your tax money and gave me my nice new bridge and tunnels.

            The biggest boondoogle in modern history is ‘The Big Dig’. It was a thousand times worse then the ‘Bridge To Nowhere’. It was mostly funded through normal channels, not earmarks.

            Earmarks are bad because the money should be going to the guys who gave you this:

            http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=45786

          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
          • Richard Mullins

            So that was the worst project that could be started. That money would be better spent down here in Texas, where at least we could extend a few Interstate highways. Heck, that money could have gone to Louisiana to extend I-49 to New Orleans.

          • Achance

            of the trucking company I worked for during The TransAlaska Pipeline that said: If the Great Wall of China were built by Bechtel and managed by Flouer, the entire population of China would be working on it and the thing still wouldn’t be finished.

            These big union/Davis-Bacon contractors live off publicly funded or heavily regulated projects. They know that the interest groups that support the project have the legislative/political swack to keep the funding coming and to keep the regulators and auditors away. That’s just the way the World works.

          • Achance

            Earmarks in and of themselves don’t increase the appropriation. The fact that the appropriators anticipate earmarks MAY increase the appropriation however. Earmarks are an invitation to corruption and that is a valid reason to oppose them. What the FBI was really looking for and never found in their persecution of Sen. Stevens was a provably corrupt link between Stevens’ earmarks and various enterprises his son Ben was associated with.

            The Public Integrity Section’s favorite game with politicians, especially Republican politicians, is to charge them with “theft of honest services.” This allows them to put on a case for a jury of twelve morons with drivers’ licences that is a definitional fallacy; politician A received a contribution from company B, politician A voted for legislation that company B supported or which would benefit company B, therefore politician A voted for the legislation BECAUSE he received a contribution from company B. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. They put several members of the Alaska Legislature in jail, at least for awhile, and thoroughly besmirched the name of my State with this scheme. It is pending before the USSC now and hopefully the SC will throw out the law as unconstitutionally vague.

            One of the very few differences between the US Constitution and the Constitution of the Confederate States was a plain language ban on federal expenditures for improvements in the states; there was a reason even back then!

          • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com Beaglescout
          • Common_Cents

            If not How do they decide amounts?

            I’d think this is kind of circular.

      • acat

        Looks more like a cornered squid dumping ink.

        “The definition of an earmark is very, very confusing. ” Really, Ron? I thought it was pretty simple – an earmark is a legislative (especially congressional) provision that directs approved funds to be spent on specific projects or that directs specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees.

        Ron spent more words obfuscating his own position than Wikipedia (who I stole the above definition from) spent defining earmarks. How hard is this, Ron? Really?

        Nothing in the definition specifies what country the spend happens in, nor does the definition care what the specific spend target is – so Ron’s blathering away about embassies and buildings and weapons systems is just that – blather.

        Worse, the particular speech is much more about Ron’s quixotic quest to “audit the Fed”.

        I sincerely hope, jsanzone, that you’re thinking for yourself…

        Mew

  • retiretherinos

    The country is broke and earmarks are usually a drain. I would like to see the end of earmarks and Robert Byrd style pork barrell politics. When the old porkers Byrd, Inouye, Cochran, Don Young, and Richard Shelby die off or leave congress, I expect earmarks to really decrease dramatically. Ron Paul is wrong on earmarks and nearly everything else. Ron Paul exists to undermine Republicans on national security. He is tied Lindsey Graham as my least favorite Republican.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    Imagine if every Republican candidate said the following:

    I pledge:

    To never do an earmark.

    To vote against every appropriation that has any earmark in it.

    To demand on the floor a full (house, senate) vote on every appropriation.

    Is that so hard?

    Thank you.
    ColdWarrior
    Conservatives! UNITE! IN the Party. Become precinct committeemen. NOW!

  • 6eorge Jetson

    are a small portion of the overall budget.

    The fundemental problem is that every dollar a congressman directs toward his or her state/district is paid for by all 50 states. It’s like a group dinner of 50 where the check will be equally split regardless of what you yourself order.

    If you get to choose between the $5 dollar hamburger and the $50 lobster , your bill will be $49.10 if you order the hamburger or $50.00 if you order the lobster like everyone else. (The same applies to health care consumption in the US.)

    THe problem with spending someone else’s money is that eventually you run out of it. We’re running into that eventuality. We need to institute incentives such that the those entities upon which federal funds are spent foot the marginal cost themselves.

  • The_Gadfly

    I might be willing to give it some thought. But as the House Republican who does the best John McCain impression by posing as someone protecting the country while screwing us over I have to insist he be named Republican Hypocrite of the Year.

    I think in the long run earmarks have their place in the legislative process. But right now they are being abused more than the patronage system was before the advent of civil service reform. And the House Republican Caucus has decided to take a stand on this issue. Therefore any Representative who undermines that stand should immediately lose all standing for Committee Leadership positions.